In the Dust of the Killing Ground
by CrimsonStarbird
Summary: It's the Phantom Lord affair that first causes Makarov to doubt himself. Oneshot, Makarov-centric.


_**A/N:** Hi all! My current Long Project is still miles away from completion, so in order to preserve my tradition of uploading something new on the first sunday of the year, here's a oneshot that I wrote a while back, straight out of the "see canon a bit differently" file. It's a bit of an experiment in a different style for me, with a character I've never really focussed on before - Makarov - so I hope you enjoy this take on things! ~CS_

* * *

 **In the Dust of the Killing Ground**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

It's the Phantom Lord affair that first causes Makarov to doubt himself.

Perhaps it's an odd place to start, for on the surface it appears to be the perfect victory for his guild. Fairy Tail has crushed Phantom Lord once and for all. His mages each proved their mettle ten times over. He himself saved the day in spectacular fashion, showing up at the last minute to strike down Jose with divine light.

The cheering begins even before the radiance of Fairy Law has faded, and all he can think about is how close he came to being too late.

No one else seems to realize it. Not Master Jose, who gawks at the magic unleashed as if his defeat had never been in question. Not Erza, who would have died if it had taken him thirty seconds longer to regain consciousness. Not his celebrating guild, who have no room for dubious _what ifs_ in the brightness of their victory.

They've already forgotten their exhaustion. When the battle becomes legend, no one bothers retelling the parts where they burn out their magic in a last-ditch attempt to save their guild; no one mentions that Jose wasn't merely fighting to win, but to kill; no one remembers the rush of blood gurgling like the Styx in their ears right before he stepped onto the stage to save them.

Most believe he deliberately waited until the last minute to intervene. Perhaps victory was more satisfying that way. Perhaps it was a perverse test of faith. Perhaps it was for dramatic effect – neither late nor early; the great wizard arriving precisely when he meant to.

It doesn't occur to anyone that it might have been a fluke.

That they might all have died that day.

He celebrates with his guild that night. He drinks, he laughs. He makes sure they know how proud he is of them for stepping up in his absence. He takes the time to congratulate each and every member of his guild for something they did well – Natsu for his audacity, Erza for her courage, Elfman for his first step away from his past and Lucy for her first step towards self-determination.

Later, he locks himself in his office, pours himself something far stronger than they're allowed to serve at the guild, and thinks about all the things he did wrong.

He hadn't seen Jose's attack coming.

He hadn't tried hard enough to keep his guild out of conflict.

He hadn't taken seriously the threat to their lives.

His children survived the ordeal, and became that much stronger for it, but it doesn't change the fact that they almost didn't.

It will be a long time before he can look at the skyward-crawling skeleton of the new guildhall and see anything other than a monument to the almost-dead.

As he sits atop the half-rebuilt structure, the dust of the construction site tasting like the dust of the killing ground upon his tongue, he wonders if he's getting too old for this. Between the Dragon Slayers and the dark guilds, it is clear that great and incomprehensible forces have been set in motion around his guild, and they're stuck with a Master who almost lost them all to a far lesser threat.

If not him, then who? Laxus has far too much to learn. Gildarts is never around, and Mystogan is almost as bad. He knows Mira would refuse the position based on her inability to fight, never mind that her compassion and strong relationships with the guild make her an ideal candidate even before factoring in her experience of the administrative side of the job. Once, he would have told her that strong magic doesn't matter in a Master. Now, he's not so sure.

And Erza… Erza has potential, but she has even more to learn than Laxus. At least he understands the importance of opening up to other people, even if he chooses not to do so more often than not these days. Freed, Evergreen and Bickslow are proof of that. Erza doesn't even have that much. Maybe she'll come to learn it, now that Team Natsu is official, but she'll destroy the guild the way she is now.

It's the same conclusion he reaches every time he considers the question, and he raises his glass in a bitter toast to fate's whims before downing the contents.

Well, it won't matter. For forty-eight years, he's been a good enough Master to keep his guild together, whatever the stupid Council and their stupid official cautions might say. One brush with annihilation in almost five decades of defying the authorities and pushing the boundaries of magic is probably good going.

There's no need to suddenly start letting those doubts confine him.

There's no reason to believe it will happen again.

* * *

A week later, it happens again.

It's worse this time, because he isn't even there. He acts cross around the guild when Team Natsu don't come straight back from their trip to Akane Resort, but inside, he knows they've earnt the time off. As far as he's concerned, they can have the whole month to themselves. Provided they're not out there causing trouble… or destroying things… on second thoughts, maybe he _does_ want them back after all…

It's not until Natsu staggers out of the ocean carrying Erza's half-dead body that he realizes how close he came to losing another child.

Etherion. A rogue Wizard Saint. The destruction of the Magic Council. The more he learns about the Tower of Heaven incident, the more he wants to lock the guildhall doors and prevent anyone from leaving except to do a job he has personally approved.

It's not a new feeling. It's a very, very old one. And that's the problem – he thought he'd ditched the urge to wrap his brats up in cotton wool and never let them out of his sight sometime during his first year as Master.

This is what he ponders as he completes the thousandth lap around his desk, waiting for an update on Natsu and Erza's conditions.

He's damn proud of those brats, because who knows how many lives they saved today? But he was almost too late when Phantom Lord attacked, and ever since then he's been seeing things differently. It isn't the danger that scares him as much as the fact that he didn't even know they were _in_ danger until it was already over.

He'll smile for them upon their return, joke with them, talk loudly about the S-Class Trials when he knows they're within earshot. That's what they need to hear, and he knows it. Right now, though, the floorboards groan their thousand-and-first protest beneath his feet, knowing that they will get no respite until he hears Natsu has woken.

* * *

It isn't until the Battle of Fairy Tail is in full swing that he thinks about Lumen Histoire.

Just like that, the tempo of the chaos changes. He isn't powerless any more. Freed's Jutsu Shiki may not let him leave the guildhall and join the fight, but Freed hadn't known he was sealing Laxus's most dangerous opponent in the same building as Fairy Tail's most dangerous weapon. It would only take a sliver of Fairy Heart's power to shatter Freed's runes. To subdue Laxus without a fight. To end the rebellion just like that, and save his guild from the horror of having to fight each other.

He doesn't do it.

Fairy Heart is a secret that can never be reburied. It's like a virus, harmless while isolated but ready to explode out of control at the first lapse in concentration. The minute it is brought out of hiding, every dark guild in the land will pounce upon Fairy Tail. The dark guilds of _other_ lands, too; he alone in Ishgar knows the real reason for Alvarez's aborted invasion a few years back. Revealing its existence to the world is like painting a huge target on the backs of his children – and if he's learnt anything from the past few weeks, it's that he can't assume he'll be enough to keep them safe throughout that storm.

Most of all, though, they'll want to know why he never warned them about it when they joined. Why he never gave them any indication that his unassuming mage guild was different to all the others, or that signing up was equivalent to reserving themselves a spot in the front lines of the war against all the darkness and the danger of this world. Why he's been lying to them from the start.

In the end, he decides against using the guild's secret weapon to end the Battle of Fairy Tail.

He tells himself it would be overkill.

He tells himself his brats aren't in any real danger.

He tells himself Laxus doesn't really mean it.

Laxus _does_ mean it, and as Thunder Palace gleams its self-satisfied proof from the heavens, he's almost glad that shock and angina have conspired to take the decision out of his hands.

It's over by the time he wakes up, and he hates himself for feeling relief.

* * *

When the Battle of Fairy Tail is over, everything returns to normal. It takes less than a day. Already, Natsu and Gajeel are fighting, as if their teamwork isn't the only reason Laxus didn't kill them both. The Fantasia Parade goes without a hitch. Everyone is sympathetic towards his heart injuries, figurative and medical. Worst of all, they know it's expelling the grandson who almost destroyed them all that hurts him the most – and they don't resent him for it, not nearly as much as they ought to.

The sight should warm his soul, not chill it.

Watching their drinking contests that night, he thinks he'd feel more comfortable if they were angry with him. As a grandfather, he's happy they could find it in themselves to see Laxus off with a smile, but there's something about how little they think of the whole affair that just isn't right. Why don't they care that he turned a blind eye to Laxus's rebellious phase, knowing it was only a matter of time before that festering anger overflowed? Why aren't they demanding to know why he, their Master, had to rely on _them_ to end the Battle of Fairy Tail without casualty? He'd rather they took him to court for not taking proper care of his guild than treated yet another of his huge, very-nearly-fatal mistakes like it was nothing.

They may have been powerful kids, but they were still kids, dammit. They shouldn't have to _do_ things like this.

They shouldn't have to try so hard to appear strong.

* * *

He doesn't want them to take the Oración Seis mission.

In fact, he would probably have let the alliance of legal guilds pass them by, if Mira hadn't happened to see the letter from Master Bob on his desk. Then he'd had to nod and smile, listening to her enthusiastic argument for why Team Natsu would be the perfect choice for it, all the while acting as though he's not trying to guess how many will make it back alive.

There's a voice in the back of his mind that insists he's overreacting. He thinks that voice must not have been paying attention when he almost lost them all to Phantom Lord.

There's a difference between accepting a dangerous job and declaring war on the Balam Alliance, and as Team Natsu bids the guildhall a far-too-joyful farewell, he can only pray that they aren't about to learn that the hard way.

They all return alive, of course. Alive and victorious. Those young mages blaze in the darkness of their age. Their trust in each other is a beautiful thing. They've found new friends to fight alongside; they've forged alliances that will endure long into the future. They laugh more now than they did before they fought and won. And the retaliation he feared before the mission never comes – how can it, now that the dark mages know that all the kingdom's guilds will unite against them?

As the days turn to weeks, the tight knot of paranoia that the Phantom Lord affair left in his stomach slowly begins to loosen.

It isn't long before he's able to look back and laugh at how foolish he has been acting. To think that he'd tried to hold back his children's growth out of entirely groundless worries! Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that list of potential Fourth Masters. Alright, Laxus might be off the list for good now, but his first few discussions with Gildarts have been promising. Give it another week, and he might even be able to muster up the courage to broach the subject when Gildarts is sober.

At long last, he stops hearing Jose's sadistic laughter every time a team walks out of those guildhall doors.

The next thing he knows, he's waking up from being turned into a parallel world's lacrima.

* * *

The less said about the Edolas incident, the better.

If there's one small consolation, it's that it all seems too far-fetched to be real. Parallel worlds? An entire country populated by flying cats? Stealing magic from another dimension? It's a struggle not to dismiss the whole affair out of hand. The difficulty of reconciling their outrageous tales with the concrete threats of the past few months makes it somehow less shocking than their other brushes with death. His own absence in their time of greatest need – _again_ – seems somehow less real.

He can't fail to notice how they talk about it, though.

How quickly kidnap, torture and murder become just another tale of derring-do.

How they can recount the antics of Edo-Gray and the torture of the Dragon Slayers in the same casual sentence.

How the attempted genocide of the entire Exceed race is just another tick on the list of disasters they've helped prevent.

How it's all just… normal.

How this is just what daily life in Fairy Tail has been like ever since the Phantom Lord affair.

He's so proud of what they achieved, but at the same time, he can't help feeling that he's let them down in some fundamental, irrevocable way.

In the guildhall, he toasts their exploits, boasting of his children to anyone who'll listen. And if he spends a little less time there now than he did before, and a little more time in private researching ways to ensure that next time, _he's_ the one rescuing _them_ from the parallel world… well, he doesn't think anyone will notice. They seem to be getting on just fine without him.

* * *

On Tenrou Island, his wish is granted.

After months of being the last to hear of any crises, he is finally on the front lines when Fairy Tail is threatened. At long last, he can fulfil his duty as Guild Master. Not swooping in at the last minute; not too afraid to unveil his secret weapon until it's already too late – he is there, right there, ready to protect his guild with his own two hands.

Ready for everyone to witness his failure.

He fails to notice that the dreaded Black Mage has been right under his nose the entire time.

He fails to beat Hades. He doesn't even take out a single one of his underlings. That's left up to his brats, _again._

He fails to even finish the S-Class Trials for them. Never mind that his mages have spent months devoting their hearts and souls to this one goal. Never mind that if he'd only been able to pick a time and place that _wasn't_ simultaneously under attack by Grimoire Heart, Zeref, and the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse, he'd probably have been able to promote the lot of them.

To him, though, the greatest sign of failure is how they refuse to let him hold off Acnologia.

Standing between them and certain death is his duty as a parent. It's his duty as a Guild Master. The brats, the mages, whatever you want to call the next generation – it's his sacred task to ensure that they live on, a task to which he would gladly offer up his life, and yet they do not consider him capable of fulfilling it.

They no longer trust him to keep them safe. They've learnt, by now, that they have to do it themselves.

He tells them he's grateful as they wait for death to come, but only because he doesn't want them to see him angry at the end.

* * *

Waking up seven years later to find himself still alive, he knows he should feel happier than he does.

Deep beneath the heartfelt reunions and vivid celebrations, he knows that the First Master had to save the guild because the Third Master couldn't.

Mavis Vermillion, dead a hundred years, did in an instant what he has been trying and failing to do for months. This echo of a human being still shines brighter than he does. This ghost, who has never even met any of his children before this day, who has had no involvement with their guild for the last ninety-odd years, is still a far better Master than he.

Macao, who saw Fairy Tail battered but not broken through seven years of hell, is a far better Master than he.

At the first opportunity he gets, he tries to resign.

They don't let him.

It's his own fault, really. He should have known better than to try and force Gildarts into a position he doesn't want. But he had no choice – Erza still isn't ready; Mira still doesn't want it; Laxus may have grown up a lot during his exile, but most members of the guild don't yet trust him, and what they need right now is a leader who makes them feel safe.

For all his joking around, Macao doesn't want the job either. Mavis will do it, and he thinks she's joking too until he points out, equally flippantly, that a ghost can't physically sign the paperwork, and the dismayed expression she quickly hides suggests she might not have been. He regrets making his joke for a whole week.

He wishes he'd done this long ago. So what if he couldn't find an appropriate successor himself? The guild would have worked something out without him; it had already been doing so for a very long time. And if he'd stepped down a few years ago, he wouldn't be stuck with an entire generation of mages for whom him being Master was simply _how things were_ , unable to conceive of anyone else in that position. Both he and they would be better off if he left, but they can't see beyond the status quo, and so they won't let him stand down.

He watches Fairy Tail win the Grand Magic Games with a kind of detached sadness, as if it's someone else's guild.

* * *

He doesn't remember much from the battle against the dragons.

There's fire and blood, towers falling, screams rising, thunder rolling from the mouths of living nightmares, and he doesn't know who's winning or losing, if such concepts even still exist. He doesn't know if anyone's evacuating the civilians. He doesn't know how many children he's already lost. There's nothing but chaos, and all he can do is ensure there are mages behind him and dragons in front, and then at least he'll know _some_ have survived the reaping.

Then Natsu is riding a dragon and someone has broken time and just like that, it's over.

He reflects, afterwards, that the details don't matter, because everyone knows the story by now.

While he is swept uselessly up in the chaos, his children are leading the charge. They don't even get one night of celebrating their victory in the Games before they're thrust into another battle for their lives, and yet they don't hesitate for a moment. He would have given anything to let them rest, let them sit this one out, to struggle and suffer and endure it in their place… but he can't. _They're_ the ones up there punching dragons – and he understands, now, why they didn't trust him to hold off Acnologia, when even twelve-year-old Wendy handled the dragon apocalypse better than he.

He's back to square one.

No, worse than square one. He might have only just made it in time against Jose, but tonight he was there from the start, and he couldn't do a thing.

He doesn't think about sleeping until he has counted every member of his guild alive and well, and even then he twists and turns amongst constricting bedsheets, knowing it wasn't anything _he_ did that made it so.

* * *

After the Grand Magic Games, things settle down once again. He's not naïve enough to think it will last. But he pretends he _is_ that naïve, throwing himself into allocating jobs and restoring the guild's finances and hosting more parties in a month than Fairy Tail has had in the past seven years combined.

If he can remind them what it's like to live without the constant fear of danger, he thinks his children might be a little more likely to return home.

When it comes, he receives the news of Tartaros's attack on the Council without surprise.

His children are determined to protect the remaining councillors, and he gives them all the support he can. In fact, when they take the fight to Tartaros, he's right there with them, smashing down the gates of hell. The demons were foolish indeed to target Laxus's team. They deserve all that's coming to them.

Still, in the back of his mind, he can't help wondering if his guild would be so eager to charge in if it wasn't a matter of avenging his grandson's team and rescuing Erza and Mira.

He knows _he_ wouldn't. But he's not so sure about his children.

It's the way they flip from carefree happiness to fighting for their lives and then straight back again, as if it's totally normal. It's the way they think nothing of these once-in-a-lifetime crises occurring monthly. It's the way they've always sought out danger – because they _have,_ now that he thinks about it, from Galuna Island to Lullaby to Lisanna's almost-death and back further still. He just hadn't been able to see it for what it was until the Phantom Lord incident almost ended very differently.

And it's as they throw themselves head-first into this new nightmare that he realizes what he should have done a long time ago: it isn't children he's been raising, but soldiers.

Encouraging them to fight. Fostering chaos. Rejecting authority, the law, society, _normality._ Allowing them to take dangerous missions. Putting so much emphasis on the S-Class Trials, as if fulfilment hinges upon the magnitude of one's magic power!

He's trained them to fight for the guild no matter what. To give their lives for a concept they don't even fully understand.

That's why every attempt to protect his children fails: he has no children left to protect.

This is his legacy.

* * *

He breaks down in front of Lumen Histoire.

Even now, he can't do it.

He knows, logically, that he's not going to get a better opportunity than this. With Fairy Heart, he can negate Face and banish the demons back to the darkness that spawned them. This isn't like Tenrou Island or the dragon apocalypse in Crocus; he can't use the distance as an excuse any more. He's right here, right in front of it, and his guild is hurting, screaming, dying… and he still can't do it.

Maybe it's because he's still afraid of the questions he can't answer.

Maybe it's because the consequences of unleashing Fairy Heart are untested, probably fatal, and he's a coward who never should have been given this responsibility in the first place.

Maybe it's because he no longer knows what it is he's protecting.

He doesn't do it. He can't.

Fairy Tail pulls through, in the end. They're saved by everything except him: their teamwork, their determination, their power, and a love that spans four hundred years and two separate species; the love of five dragons who made far better parents than he. They gave their lives and their futures to ensure their children's survival, and he couldn't even bring himself to activate Fairy Heart.

* * *

Mavis's forgiveness breaks him.

She tells him the time wasn't right for Fairy Heart. Maybe she's right, but they both know that even if the time _had_ been right, he still wouldn't have been able to do it. He's only the Master because she can't be and no one else wants to be. It isn't a position he's earnt, or a position he deserves, and there in the ruins of the guildhall, it breaks him.

Just once, he wants to be the one to protect his children.

Just once.

That's why he goes to Alvarez alone.

* * *

Disbanding the guild is probably the stupidest thing he's ever done.

He thinks on that, during his long stay in the guest rooms of Vistarion's Imperial Palace. It doesn't take him long to peel apart the _it's for their own good_ arguments that seemed so convincing amidst the ashes. There's no point pretending. He chose not to give them a say in it. He wouldn't have done that if he'd thought for a second that they would agree to this.

Still, he may have chosen the most selfish route to express them, but his intentions are good. He really does want to protect them. That one thought sustains him as the negotiations drag on and on. While he's here, he might as well see if he can preserve what little peace the soldiers of his guild still share. This is his chance to make a real difference for them.

He's so convinced he's finally being a hero that he doesn't recognize the delaying tactics for what they are until he comes face to face with Emperor Spriggan.

It isn't the daring last-minute rescue that surprises him, but the fact that he was deemed worthy of rescue at all.

* * *

International war.

It isn't an S-Class Quest gone wrong, this time. It's not a spat between two rival guilds. It's not even a clash between a legal guild and a dark one – the kind of conflict for which he will no longer use the Council's official term _war,_ because it does not resemble the truth of war in scale, intent, or consequence.

It is the upper limit of escalation, the point beyond which things can no longer get worse; the end of the path his guild has been merrily marching down for a long time, now.

He tries to talk them out of it, although he knows his pet soldiers won't dream of turning down the opportunity to fight for real. Not even the children. Not even those with children of their own. Not even those with lives, hobbies, passions, or any other reason to live outside the guild itself. They vow to fight until the end for that ill-defined, intangible concept, and his tears aren't of happiness, but a down payment for all the funerals he's just signed off on.

At least the First Master is here to take control. He finally has an excuse to give command of Fairy Tail over to her. She's the experienced general. They call her the Fairy Tactician for a reason. She knows how to use their forces most effectively – how to win against impossible odds.

Mavis is what the guild needs right now. Maybe she's what the guild has always needed. They're so eager to fight, and she's so eager to let them.

It is with enormous relief that he steps down and lets the responsibility fall to someone else. After all, this is exactly what's been happening for months now, only made formal.

And he can't deny that it's working. Mavis's strategies aren't perfect, but they've already made more progress than he had dared to dream. Victory no longer seems so impossible. One last push, and they might even be able to recapture their guildhall from Zeref.

He should have done this years ago. It should have been Mavis from the start – and if not her, someone else; half the guild would have dealt with the past few years better than he did. Still, better late than never. Once the war is over, he can quietly slip into retirement, and the guild will carry on down the path it has chosen to the future without him.

Mavis leads Fairy Tail's final charge against Irene's berserkers, and it's like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

* * *

When the first Fairy Tail mage collapses from exhaustion, he thinks Mavis will stop.

She doesn't.

At first, he assumes she hasn't seen. He calls for her attention; gestures to their fallen ally. The guild has reached its limit – once one falls, many more will follow. This brute force strategy isn't going to work. They need to pull back, regroup, and rethink.

That's not what she does, though. She gestures for Erza to move around, filling the gap in their still-advancing line.

Well, she's the Fairy Tactician. She'll have some clever strategy he isn't able to see.

When the second and third and fourth ones succumb to their wounds and collapse, he thinks Mavis will stop.

She doesn't.

Their line is thinner now, and moving far more slowly. Some are dragging themselves along by their weapons. Some look like they'll pass out if an Alvarez soldier so much as breathes on them. Some already know they are defeated, and are just waiting for the universe to realize it too and pull them down where they belong.

They fall one by one, and the dust of the killing ground rises.

He says this to Mavis. She tells him he's wrong. She's calculated it all: the distance still to go, the size of her force, the depletion rate. They'll lose many but not all. Enough will survive to fight Zeref and achieve victory for the guild. Injuries will heal, exhaustion is temporary; those who collapse before the end will be fine.

But it isn't fine.

It's not fine to let them suffer, whether they'll _be okay in the end_ or not. It's not fine to expect them to sacrifice themselves. How they act doesn't matter; it's not fine to treat his children as if they are soldiers.

Maybe he has no right to argue, maybe he gave that up with the title of Master, but it doesn't seem to matter to him. They might be Mavis's guild now, but they're _his_ children. He couldn't sit there and let Jose destroy them; he won't stand here and watch Mavis do the same.

He will protect his children, even if it costs him his life.

It's not the huge, pivotal, smashing-a-dragon-into-the-Eclipse-Gate moment he's been hoping for. It's not him standing between his children and an enemy at all. His strongest magic won't even touch Zeref. Their greatest opponent will still need beating; the war will still have to be won.

For him, though, it's not about winning or losing any more. It's about giving his children the best chance, the best lives, the best _futures_ he can offer them. It's about ensuring that not a single one of them is left to suffer as a pawn in the dust.

That knowledge is all he needs as he invokes the ancient magic of his guild. It's ironic, really, that the same spell which shook his confidence all those years ago would also be the one to give it back.

He gives his life to Fairy Law, and the enemy army is obliterated.

* * *

In a way, he's glad to die.

He's been estranged from his guild for far too long. It feels like coming home.

* * *

He doesn't die, though.

Waking to Laxus's tearful face, his first thought is that he must be dreaming, because outward displays of affection are very unlike his grandson. But Mira is crying too, and then everyone's jumping on him and trying to hug him and his heart is hurting too damn much for it to be a dream.

To be honest, he zones out their yelling about being too reckless. It's not like they ever listen to _his_ lectures.

He listens when they tell him what happened after he cast Fairy Law, though. They say his actions changed the tide of the battle. They say it was that warm and gentle light which kept them strong through the battles to come. They say it reminded them of the home waiting for them at the end – the home and the family they were fighting for.

Most importantly, they tell him how Mavis had stared and stared as he gave up his life, with tears pouring down her cheeks. That was when she realized she was guilty of the same thing as Zeref. That, without realizing it, she had been suppressing the curse in the exact same way _he_ had. That she had thought only of victory, and not of the cost. That she could never be the Master Fairy Tail deserved. And his actions had given her the courage to face Zeref herself, knowing she would not come back.

As his victorious guild take advantage of his lingering paralysis to hoist him onto their shoulders, he thinks he finally understands. For so long he has obsessed over the fact that they don't trust him to protect them, and he can see, now, that ever since the Phantom Lord affair, _he's_ the one who hasn't been able to trust _them._

It's alright to worry about them. There's no such thing as worrying too much, because there can be no such thing as loving someone too much. But being Master isn't about physically protecting the guild. Like all children, his have to be allowed to learn to take care of themselves. It's not about stifling them by keeping them out of the fighting, but helping them flourish by making sure that fighting isn't the only thing in their lives. He knows he can trust them to protect themselves – and each other – no matter what darkness the world throws at them, and they in turn can trust him to ensure that the place to which they return at the end of every adventure always feels like home.

They could be the most powerful mages in the world, and as long as he keeps thinking of them as his children, he'll do right by them.

* * *

He leads the guild from a wheelchair, now.

Using Fairy Law burnt his magic out completely, and much of his body too. He'll never be able to fight like he used to – but the knowledge doesn't bother him like it once would have done. If any villains still have the nerve to challenge his guild after all that, he knows his children will take care of them. After all, the measure of a Master isn't the strength of his magic, but the strength of his guild.

They still won't let him retire, although he hasn't been trying very hard to convince them.

He'll stay for as long as they'll have him.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _I think it's ironic how it can take me hundreds of thousands of words to cover a normal story arc, and yet this time I've managed to do all of Fairy Tail in about 6k. Huh. I should do this kind of oneshot more often._

 _This story came about as my attempt to understand that manga scene with Makarov, Mavis and Fairy Law. It's my belief that Fairy Tail contains a lot of deep and clever ideas that just aren't properly utilized, and that scene was one of them. Beneath the whole 'wanting to shock/upset the audience by appearing to kill off a character' thing (not to mention getting to cross another character off the 'must get a cool scene before the end of the series' list), I think there's a lot of development in that one chapter for Makarov, and even more for Mavis. The latter would have come across better if I had written it from her point of view, but I've already done that sort of thing for her elsewhere, so I decided to focus on Makarov instead, and explore what canon might look like from his point of view. I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of his character! For such a gloomy little fic, this one was a lot of fun to write from a technical standpoint, so do let me know what you think!_

 _Thanks for reading through to the end! If all goes to plan, I'll be back sometime later this year with my next long story, but when do things ever really go to plan? ~CS_


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